Hi spooner777,
I also use Cura so the material cost estimation is not the problem. And as you say, only material costs are veeeeery low, so I think the material estimation after slicing is precise enough. Even if later the filling has to be denser or similar, the material costs do not impact the overall price in a large amount.
On the other hand, if we charge something to somebody then we cannot charge him/her our problems (extruder jamming, failed starts, loosing time because of low print speeds at badly tuned printers etc.). So I guess it is only the material cost and the printer payoff. To payoff the printer we should know how many kilograms of PLA or ABS will our UM survive - 10, 100, 1000? Can anybody guess? Are there some durability tests made by the Ultimaker team to answer this question?
I see from your answer that you have the same problem with estimating the value of our printouts. I guess for the time being the fee it is "guessing" and waiting for the market to balance this issue out.
But anyway, you have made a first attempt. I have thought about five times the material costs, otherwise we get close to the shapeways and co. prices and I am not sure that we can compete with their printouts and materials.
Let's see if anybody else has any other ideas?
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spooner777 0
If you use Cura you can enter your material costs and it tells you how much the actual part will cost. For me that is always between 10cents and 1€. So really really cheap.
So if you want to charge somebody it is really just for your machine cost and of course the hours of work you put in. At the moment it takes me about 5 failed starts of a print. So after the first 3 layers it usually works fine. That adds up to a lot of time fixing the machine and so on. I would say 20 times the material costs? For friends maybe 10 times.
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